Is there any consistency with verb endings?

7 comments

1. consistency how? that’s too open of a question. it’s not like every える verb has to do with motion or feeling or something like that, if that’s what you mean. every verb, even those that share kanji, has it’s own etymology and history, and they all differ. there are some patterns but mostly in historical changes of verbs over time. like there’s no ふ verbs any more because they were mostly replaced with う verbs.

2. To “look” at a car and to “book” a reservation end in “ook” but have nothing to do with each other.

   Same as English, verbs end in any sound they want.

3. http://nihongo.monash.edu/ti_list.html

4. It’s not random.

   Verbs that have the same kanji and different okurigana are often transitive/intransitive pairs.

   For example 閉める (to close something)　閉まる (to be closed, to close without something else causing it)

   You will often find pairs like these where the える ending is transitive, and the ある ending is intransitive.

   上げる=to lift up, 上がる=to rise up, 止める=to stop something, 止まる=to stop, 広げる=to spread something out, 広がる= to spread out, 始める= to start something, 始まる=to start

   A similar thing happens where う endings shift to える

   E.G. 届く=to be delivered, 届ける=to deliver, 作る= to make, 作れる= to be made, 焼く= to cook, 焼ける=to be cooked, 痛む=to be painful/to hurt, 痛める= to hurt someone

   Just keep in mind with these ones you can’t always guess which way the transitivity changes based on the ending.

   Then there’s う (very often but not always る) and す. す will be the transitive in these pairs.

   出る=to exit, 出す=to bring something out, 驚く=to be surprised, 驚かす= to surprise someone, 落ちる=to fall, 落とす=to drop something

   You can find a huge list of these [here](http://nihongo.monash.edu/ti_list.html)

5. There are 5 big categories. The biggest two are transitive and intransitive verbs.

   [Transitivity](http://nihongo.monash.edu/ti_list.html) expresses if the action affects only the subject or an object. There’s a general pattern for 4 groups.

   Verbs, regardless of their transitivity, also fall into 3 basic groups: ichidan, godan and irregular. Each of these three groups have conjugation patterns.

6. Well, ive found that some of these come in noticeable pairs, like say -れる (intransitive) and -す (transitive)

   >現れる – 現す
   >
   >壊れる – 壊す
   >
   >汚れる – 汚す
   >
   >流れる – 流す

   And -いる (intransitive) and -おす (transitive)
   >落ちる – おとす
   >
   >起きる – 起こす

   My advice though? Forget about patterns completely. Theyre probably nonexistent, if there are in fact some, youll spend more time figuring it out than learning actually useful vocabulary.

7. Read Genki 1 about RU and U endings. and then Kuru and Suru have their own rules. I actually don’t think its that complicated. Unless I’m missing the point of your question. (laptop im using right now doesnt have japanes keyboard on it)